A Christmas Carrel
by quirky cricket
Summary: A jaded and almost tenured Dorothy Ann has walled herself away from her friends, and it's Christmas.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

It had been seven years since Dr. Decker, her beloved PhD advisor, had been dismissed, and just before the university closed for Winter Break. That had ruined Christmas for Dr. Dorothy Ann Mauer, renowned astrophysicist and lowly Assistant Professor at Walker State University. He had been denied tenure and dismissed for the community college adjunct field - a fate worse than death. Dr. Decker had worked closely with Dorothy Ann on her dissertation, but academic politics had blocked him from her tenure committee. He had moved here from Brown, a step down as he got nearer retirement, but he hadn't anticipated that the step would fall out from under him as he hit rock bottom.

There was no use dwelling on it, Dorothy Ann figured. She had to make her own way as a young – though not as young as she used to be – physics professor. This was her sixth year teaching for her alma mater, and she knew she had to succeed where her mentor had failed. She needed to get tenure, and she'd be damned if she'd let something like a broken heater in the physics building get in the way of crunching her data. She was wearing layers of sweaters, two pairs of gloves, and a fluffy hat as she toiled away. The heater would be fixed over the break, but science waits for no one.

When she hired graduate assistants, she told them that her work schedule was rigorous. She worked hard to get to where she was, and over the years, she'd grown her reputation for her detailed reports of her experiments. She'd been published in all the big physics journals and was working on some book chapters. She'd presented at conferences, and developed her own lectures and tests. She took the requirements for tenure and doubled them. That was the standard she set for herself. If they denied her tenure, she'd take her stack of publications and go somewhere else. Somewhere whose prestige matched and enhanced her own.

"Dr. Mauer?" Her grad student, a young woman named Emily, asked. "Do – do I need to be here? It's freezing."

"This data won't analyze itself." Dorothy Ann scowled. "Do you want to come in tomorrow?"

"But tomorrow's Christmas!" Emily student exclaimed. "I already canceled my trip to North Dakota. Can't we take one day off?"

"Do you want co-authorship on this paper or not?" Dorothy Ann asked. She knew she had to hold these grad students to high standards; after all, that's how she was able to be so successful. That's why she always had far more applicants than she knew what to do with.

"Yes." Emily said, resigned. "What time tomorrow?"

* * *

Dorothy Ann walked to her small apartment near campus. There was no reason for her to live further in town: her life revolved around the university. Sure, she could have tried to live somewhere it was easier to have an actual life, perhaps. But actual lives as non-academics knew them didn't really appeal to her. She was too old for the bar and dating scene, not that she even understood the appeal. It might be nice to be married, she thought every now and then, but to whom? Who would understand the immense pressure she put on herself? And would it be better to marry someone who had higher expectations, or someone who gave her a break? There had to be an answer, but she didn't want to take time finding it. Solving her own personal problems seemed like such a small thing compared to solving the problems of the universe.

As she was heading home, she was interrupted by a group of undergraduates.

"Sorry to bother you, but we're selling candy canes for the music program." One spoke up. Dorothy Ann sighed. She hated when bell ringers were more than passively thanking people for their coins. "The state keeps cutting funding to the arts, and we're trying to raise funds to buy new instruments. We'll donate our old instruments to the elementary schools."

"Can't you get jobs?" Dorothy Ann asked. "Don't you know the meaning of hard work?" Before they could talk, she sighed. "Of course you don't. You're undergraduates. Undergraduates in _music_."

"Excuse me?" Another one asked. "We all have jobs. You don't understand -"

" _You_ don't understand." Dorothy Ann said. "Music is wonderful, but majoring in it? Are you trying to doom yourself to lives of failure? Give yourself a purpose."

"We do have a purpose." Yet another undergraduate said. "Music is an important discipline. It -"

"I've heard enough. Good day." Dorothy Ann said and kept walking. When she got to her apartment, she could swear she saw movement behind the peephole, but dismissed it as merely shadow. She locked the door behind her and heated up some soup. She had developed a great fondness for soup during her studies – it was easy to cook in large batches and easy to reheat. This batch had an abundance of celery, because it was on sale. She hadn't stopped living frugally, though living alone, she had plenty of money left over after her expenses each month. What little she had left over after paying toward her student loans she saved for the eventual day when she'd move across the country to a large, prestigious university. Or maybe she'd buy a car. Something practical and fuel-efficient.

She put her soup down next to her laptop, sat in her desk chair, and leaned back and stretched before looking at her email. Sure, she could have checked her email on her smartphone, but there was something deliciously old fashioned about sitting at a computer and reading.

Dr. Decker had emailed her, as he had weekly. They kept an epistolary correspondence – asynchronous friendship was easier to maintain than things like phone calls and visits. He was still having difficulty. Being an adjunct was living hell, especially for a man of his brilliance. After a long paragraph of musings, he had an entire paragraph in bold.

 _ **Dorothy Ann, I've become convinced that my whole life has been a mistake. I have focused far too much on research at the expense of developing a support system. You're the only one who understands, and it's because you've dug yourself into the same hole. But it's not too late for you as it is me. Go out, enjoy life off the tenure track. You'll need to rely on it in the hard times. You aren't your research. If only I'd traveled beyond the conferences! I could have seen the world! I could have fallen in love! Please, Dorothy Ann, don't end up a desperate lonely adjunct like me!**_

That was never the plan. Dorothy Ann would never adjunct, not until she was semi-retired.

Dorothy Ann moved to the next email she had – an invitation from Carlos to his house for Christmas dinner. She rolled her eyes. Carlos never stopped inviting her to things, no matter how many times she said she was too busy. The rest of her friends had mostly married, which had left her alone as well. As she was reading it, her phone buzzed with a text.

 _Did you get my email?_ It was from Carlos, the only person who confirmed email receipts with text messages.

 _Of course I did._

 _Well?_ She could practically hear him. She had to think of an ironclad excuse. She had no car to go into town, but she was sure one of her friends would pick her up. She had to tell the truth.

 _I've got a long day in the lab tomorrow. I have to sleep well tonight._

 _Take a break, will ya?_ Carlos asked.

 _You know the answer to that_. Dorothy Ann couldn't help but smile sadly. Her friends were too kind, too forbearing with her. Dr. Decker's warning loomed in her mind. If she kept pushing them away, would they be gone forever?

On the other hand: what if she was on the verge of a great discovery? What would Schrodinger do?

As she finished her soup, Dorothy Ann wrote Dr. Decker back. She decided to keep it mostly to the research, but just after she hit send, an email came back.

 _Enough about the research! Get out and live!_

Dorothy Ann was confused; he never responded this quickly. Something strange was happening. She texted Carlos.

 _I don't know what you're doing, but you need to cut it out._

Carlos didn't reply, but another email from Dr. Decker came in.

 _I know I can't convince you to change your ways, but there are others who can. You'll be visited by three spirits tonight._

Dorothy Ann rolled her eyes and texted Carlos again. _You need to stop it. This isn't funny. I hate Dickens, I hate Christmas, and I hate you._

 _What are you talking about? Are you high?_ Carlos replied.

If it wasn't Carlos, then who was it? Dorothy Ann threw out the rest of her soup, as it had clearly gone bad, and went to bed.

* * *

 **author's note:** Obviously, I don't own MSB or _A Christmas Carol_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Dorothy Ann hadn't realized she was sleeping until she awoke to the banging of a clock, which was odd, since she didn't own anything that would make that sound. As she sat up, wondering if she'd changed the alarm tone on her phone, she saw Wanda standing in the room with her. Only something was different about her – Wanda was wearing a long, white robe and an ethereal glow. She looked almost angelic. _I definitely made the right choice in throwing out that soup._ Dorothy Ann thought. _Besides, that can't be Wanda; this has to be a dream._

"Beauty sleep's over, princess." Wanda said. It was definitely Wanda.

"How did you get in here?" Dorothy Ann cried. "What's up with the weird robe? Are you glowing?"

Wanda came closer to her, almost floating. "I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"What the hell?" Dorothy Ann swatted at Wanda, but it had no effect. "This is bullshit. You know I hate this story."

"Too bad, Scrooge. You're wasting your life away, and I'm here to save you, like I always have." Wanda folded her arms.

"You've gotten me into more trouble than anyone." Dorothy Ann protested.

"And it's my job to remind you of how fun that was." Wanda insisted.

"Okay, all right, look. I've been working too hard. I've neglected you. I'll go to dinner with Carlos. Are you happy? Can we be done?" Dorothy Ann threw her hands in the air.

"Nope, sorry." Wanda grabbed Dorothy Ann's arm, and suddenly the two were transported back to Walkerville Elementary School.

"What the hell is this?" Dorothy Ann had a feeling she'd be asking that a lot. "I told you – I'll go to the stupid dinner."

Wanda looked disapprovingly at Dorothy Ann. "You have to trust the journey."

"Since when have you of all people trusted the journey?" Dorothy Ann demanded.

"This is the one time this won't be about me, so you'd better enjoy it." Wanda threatened.

"Damn the journey." Dorothy Ann muttered. "Fine. What are we looking at here?"

"Shut up and watch." Wanda pointed at the school, where Dorothy Ann and her friends ran out into the playground for recess. They were in fourth grade, she knew – she'd still wear pigtails for the rest of that year, but she was taller than Carlos, much to his chagrin. Dorothy Ann tried to remain skeptical, but there was something moving about seeing her younger self laughing and talking with her friends like nothing was wrong – because nothing was. Here, they hadn't been jaded by relationships and puberty, the grind of high school and the strain of becoming adults. Here, they were just children with dreams. Dorothy Ann couldn't help but look at them and then see them as the adults they'd become. "Don't do that." Wanda said. "Just watch."

"How do you know what I'm thinking?" Dorothy Ann whispered.

"Magic!" Ralphie yelled from the playground. Dorothy Ann startled a bit, then she realized that the children were talking about Santa Claus and other things Ralphie insisted on believing in far past the point of reason.

"Don't you think you're a little old to believe in magic?" The young Dorothy Ann asked. "Isn't it simpler to believe that the parents are just giving us presents and _pretending_ to be Santa?"

"But where's the fun in that?" Ralphie asked.

"Where, indeed." Wanda, The Ghost of Christmas Past, remarked. Wanda had an annoying habit of co-opting Dorothy Ann's speech patterns. Dorothy Ann could never tell if Wanda was mocking her or not.

"Don't make fun of me." Dorothy Ann felt childish to admonish her friend like this, and somewhat alarmed that she was so defensive. "Are you seriously going to show me everything I've ruined for everyone?"

"You didn't ruin it. Ralphie's mom told him, but he didn't believe her. Remember?" Wanda replied. "You just stopped believing there was wonder in the world a long time ago."

"You've got to be kidding." Dorothy Ann sighed. "I of all people appreciate the wonder of the world. I'm the one that's studying the mysteries of the universe. You're -"

"Actually enjoying them." Wanda interrupted. "Studying isn't the same thing as just letting things be magical." Wanda grabbed Dorothy Ann's arm again, and before she could wrest it away, they were watching the same eight kids hanging out in Arnold's living room. It was two years later, and they were in sixth grade. Arnold's house was the only one that didn't lose power in the biggest blizzard the area had ever seen.

Dorothy Ann turned to Wanda. "Wait, is this the Blizzard of '96? Wasn't that in January?" Dorothy Ann asked.

"Picky, picky." Wanda waved her off and gestured toward the scene. Everyone was antsy with cabin fever, but managing to keep it under control, except for one.

"Let's go sledding!" Twelve-year-old Wanda cried. "You have sleds, don't you, Arnold?"

"I guess, maybe a few." Arnold's voice cracked and he turned red.

"Let's not." Tim offered. "Let's stay in here where it's warm."

"Ooh, warm." Wanda considered it. "Warm but boring. Come on, where's your sense of adventure?"

"Somewhere underneath 30.7 inches of snow." The young Dorothy Ann quipped.

"You could've said three feet." Carlos argued.

"That's 36 inches, dummy." Dorothy Ann retorted.

"Come on, you wimps!" Wanda pleaded. "It's an adventure out there! It looks like Christmas." No one looked impressed in the half-second that Wanda paused, so she began to sing, dragging out the first words until they were both unbearably long as well as off-key. "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..."

"No!" The rest of the group cringed.

"Christmas is over!" Dorothy Ann yelled louder than she intended.

"Wow." Ralphie remarked to Tim. "Harsh."

"If we go sledding, will you stop singing?" Arnold pleaded. "Sleds are in the garage."

Dorothy Ann felt frozen in place as she watched the gaggle of awkward kids move toward the garage to get sleds. She was mesmerized by how vivid these memories were. She'd half-forgotten them before, and now that she was watching herself and her friends again, they came rushing back. She felt tears well up in her eyes. "I had a really great time that day." She said quietly. "I flirted with Carlos and threw snowballs and no one ended up with frostbite or hypothermia."

The Ghost of Christmas Past didn't say anything. Maybe she wasn't Wanda after all.

"Okay, show me what's next." Dorothy Ann grabbed Wanda's arm.

"I knew you'd come around." Wanda smiled. This time, the group was much older – it was while Dorothy Ann was in grad school, as a matter of fact – and sitting around in Carlos's basement. They didn't look quite as fresh and innocent. They were harried and stressed with the pressure of making lifelong decisions. They'd dated, broken up, and betrayed each other.

"Aren't you supposed to show me good things?" Dorothy Ann asked. Wanda stared straight ahead, and Dorothy Ann followed suit.

Keesha squared her jaw. "Let me get this straight. You're too busy for any of us."

"I'm going to have to focus on grad school." Dorothy Ann protested. "Then, once that's done, I can hang out with you again."

"How do you know you won't have time for us in grad school?" Arnold asked. "It seems pretty premature for you to decide now that you won't see us for five years."

"You don't understand how rigorous PhD programs are." Dorothy Ann sighed. She'd tried explaining this to them before.

"You realize that you're not the only one with things going on, right?" Keesha started. "I've been busting my ass writing bullshit and calling it 'journalism.'"

"I'm in law school." Arnold pointed out.

"Law school doesn't trump everything!" Dorothy Ann sighed. "You don't understand – there's coursework, research, teaching... it's all so much. I just – I just need a break, okay?"

"Don't take too long." Phoebe said softly.

The scene faded away, and Dorothy Ann was back in her darkened bedroom. The juxtaposition of what was and what had become was stark. She could see clearly – without the intervening years fading the happy memories – just what she'd thrown away. Wanda's white robe seemed to shine especially bright against the deep dark of Dorothy Ann's room. "I probably blew it with everyone, didn't I?" Dorothy Ann asked quietly.

Wanda put her hand on Dorothy Ann's arm, and they were transported out of Dorothy Ann's apartment once more. Dorothy Ann didn't recognize the room they were in – it was someone's house, festively decorated for Christmas. "Where are we?" Dorothy Ann asked. The front door opened without so much as a knock, and her friends streamed in. Maybe it was because it was Christmas, but the sadness and weariness wasn't on their faces.

"You know how hard it was for me to make this work," Wanda announced as she entered, her arms full of presents. "What with work and all."

"Stop bragging that your job is cooler than everyone else's." Ralphie argued. "How many fugitives did you catch today?"

Wanda made a non-committal noise and put a bottle of wine down on the counter.

"What does she – you – what do you do?" Dorothy Ann asked the ghost.

"Oh damn, you're out of touch." Ghost Wanda shook her head.

"Everyone's busy," Keesha said. " _The Daily Scoop_ -"

"Stop it." Ralphie interrupted. "Stop holding your success and your cool jobs over everyone."

"Jealous much?" Wanda snarked to Keesha.

"No more talking about work!" Carlos, who was apparently hosting, came out of the kitchen. "It makes Ralphie uncomfortable."

"Thanks." Ralphie was insincere. "Carlos, where's your girlfriend?"

"She's got some sort of flu that she didn't want to share." Carlos said, before turning to Tim. "What about -"

Tim sighed. "She's not coming." He didn't provide any explanation.

Dorothy Ann looked at Wanda. "What's going on?" The ghost didn't respond.

"Oh." Arnold said. "And what about D.A.?"

"She blew me off. Again." Carlos explained. "Why do I even try?"

"She'll come around." Phoebe insisted. "She has to."

"Well, we're glad you're all here." Keesha began. "2016 sucked ass, so here's hoping 2017 is a little better." She raised a glass.

"To 2017!" The group toasted.

Dorothy Ann watched the group for a while to figure out what was off. She'd managed to go to all the weddings, so she wasn't surprised there. Phoebe wasn't drinking, which was odd, but that wasn't it. There was something going on with Tim. He was clearly depressed, and no one was talking about it. Right as Dorothy Ann was about to ask Wanda what was going on, she saw it – Tim wasn't wearing his wedding band.

"Bingo." Wanda said.

"What happened?" Dorothy Ann asked.

Wanda shrugged. "Tim and Janet were never right for each other."

"How did I not know?" It was a rhetorical question. Someone had to have told her this last year, but she apparently hadn't cared enough to remember. But here, watching her friends, she had to care. As they talked over dinner, Tim loosened up and was laughing again, though not nearly as much as he used to.

Carlos raised his glass. "To Dorothy Ann, wherever she is. May she get tenure and start hanging out with us again."

"You know she won't." Ralphie remarked. "First she was busy getting into grad school, then it was grad school, and now it's tenure. She's written us off."

"I have not!" Dorothy Ann yelled, but none of her friends could hear. "Dammit, Wanda, take me home! I'm done!" The dining room faded into darkness, and Dorothy Ann knew she was back in her apartment. She couldn't believe that some of her friends were giving up on her. It wasn't fair. She grabbed Wanda by the arms, looking her straight in her oddly glowing face. "Why did you show me all this?" Dorothy Ann demanded.

"I just showed you what happened. It's not my fault things ended up the way they did." Wanda wasn't worried by Dorothy Ann's anger.

"It's not mine, either." Dorothy Ann's anger was mixed with sadness, and she felt pangs of regret. "They don't understand. Neither do I, I guess."

"Good." Wanda said. "But you're still going to be visited by two more spirits."

Dorothy Ann felt too emotionally exhausted to argue, so she sat down on her bed. "Fine."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Now what?" Dorothy Ann asked as the clock struck again.

"Come in here!" A voice cried from her living room. Dorothy Ann knew the story and expected to see a jolly giant, but instead, she saw Carlos wearing a box.

"What are you supposed to be?"

"The Ghost of Christmas Present." Carlos gestured at the box, which was wrapped in silver paper. "Get it?"

"Jesus Christ." Dorothy Ann covered her face. "Fine, let's go. Let's get this over with. Keep the puns to a minimum."

"You know I can't promise that." Carlos grinned widely. "So you've recently realized you're completely out of touch with what's going on."

"You could say that." Dorothy Ann admitted. "Tim's divorced?"

"Let's have a look at what's going on, shall we?" Carlos grabbed her arm and, just as had happened with Wanda, they were suddenly whisked into someone's living room. It was cozy, decorated in muted greens, with a small artificial tree. The couches looked a little worn, but comfortable. The tree had a few presents underneath, and Christmas cards were pinned up on the walls. Dorothy Ann walked over and looked at them. "Make yourself at home, sheesh!" Carlos teased.

"We're not really here," Dorothy Ann snapped. "I can figure out where I am." She recognized several of the cards from having received them herself, but hers were in a stack on her kitchen counter. Arnold and Phoebe were married and beaming in their card. "So this is Ralphie and Keesha's house." She deduced. She looked around – few pictures were on the walls, and nothing really stood out to her at first, but as she looked closer, she recognized her friends and their parents in the photos, plus a growing group of young children as the photos got newer. "I don't think I've ever been here or met their kids." As she walked around, she stepped on a toy car and fell to the ground.

"You slipped up." Carlos grinned.

Dorothy Ann shook her head. "That was tenuous at best. So what are we doing here? I get it – they have kids and I missed it." Carlos opened his mouth to speak, but Dorothy Ann cut him off. "But look, new parents always ditch their friends. It's a biological drive for survival. It's natural. It's also not my fault."

"Neither is the San Andreas, but it's still a big problem." Carlos made finger guns for added effect.

"Damn you straight to hell, Carlos." Dorothy Ann stared at him unblinkingly. "What's the life lesson?" Instead of answering her, Carlos put his hands over her eyes. "What are you doing?!" Dorothy Ann cried.

"How many kids do they have?" Carlos asked. "And maybe be quiet, they're sleeping."

 _Dammit_ , Dorothy Ann thought. She didn't know, and couldn't figure the kids from the cousins in the pictures. This would require some math – Ralphie and Keesha got married in, what? 2012? 2013?

"2011." Carlos said aloud. "You really have no idea, do you?"

"Stop it." Dorothy Ann continued her calculations. They had anywhere from one to six kids, then. The average number of children for couples in the United States was between two and two and a half, if she recalled correctly. Ralphie was Catholic, but neither had ever been that parental, so how did that factor in? Dorothy Ann needed a whiteboard. She could figure this out.

"Just say you don't know." Carlos said, a little more gently.

"I -" Dorothy Ann started to give in, but she was too stubborn. She had to pick an answer and quickly. "Three." She pulled Carlos's hands off her eyes. "Am I right?"

"Two." Carlos pointed at one of the pictures: Ralphie and Keesha with two brunette toddlers.

Carlos pointed at the smaller child in the picture. "There's the baby. Would you like a cookie for noticing?"

Dorothy Ann shook her head. "So they're busy taking care of their kids. It's no wonder we can't all get together." She went back toward the Christmas cards and saw a letter sitting opened on the counter.

"What does it say?" Carlos asked from right behind her. Dorothy Ann jumped.

"I thought you were going to tell me not to read it." Dorothy Ann picked up the letter.

"You're not reading it fast enough, give it to me!" Carlos snatched the letter and started reading. "Blah blah blah, thank you for writing your representative, blah blah blah, sports funding."

"Sports funding?" Dorothy Ann grabbed the letter back. "Did they write to Congress about sports funding?"

"Hadn't you heard that they're cutting a ton of education funding for phys ed and extracurriculars?"

Dorothy Ann looked at Carlos. "And you planted this reply to Ralphie in their house so that I could learn a lesson about politics?"

"Okay, let's make this really basic. What's Ralphie do for a living?" Carlos asked.

"He's a gym teacher." Dorothy Ann replied, then immediately doubted herself. "Is he still teaching gym?"

"Yep." Carlos said. "And what keeps getting cut?"

"The arts." Dorothy Ann said.

"And sports teams that don't make money." Carlos added. "Like baseball. We're in a football world now, and the Walkerville Vikings suck so bad they call them the Walkerville Vacuums. And Keesha's a member of the hated media. Her paper doesn't want to sell ads and compromise their journalistic integrity, but that's the nature of the beast now."

"Okay, fine, they have kids but their jobs suck." Dorothy Ann shrugged.

"And they could use all the friends they can get." Carlos mused. "Which is probably why they keep making more people, since Ralphie's a bit desperate for friends..."

"Stop it." Dorothy Ann said. "You did not drag me out of my apartment in the middle of the night to make fun of Ralphie."

Carlos laughed. "You really don't know me anymore, do you?"

"They'll end up okay," Dorothy Ann said. "It's not like they're in the arts."

"Great segue!" Carlos said as they appeared in a small apartment. It was decorated with an eclectic collection of paintings and photographs.

"This is easy," Dorothy Ann said. "It's Tim's. He drew all this."

"No he didn't." Carlos pointed at the corner of a painting. "He buys art from the kids he teaches."

"He's an art teacher?" Dorothy Ann asked. "I thought Walkerville High cut its art program."

"Tim was never about the mainstream art stuff. He's at some weird loft thing for at-risk kids." Carlos explained. "Check out the Christmas cards."

Dorothy Ann looked at Tim's collection of cards, which completely eclipsed the ones sent to Ralphie and Keesha. She could hardly see her friends' cards through all the handwritten notes. She skimmed through snippets of them:

 _Thank you so much for believing in me! You're the first person who ever told me I was good at painting, and I wanted to let you know that I got a scholarship to Walker State._

 _Merry Christmas! I am still trying to raise funds to produce my film, but I have a great start thanks to you._

 _When I met you, I was in a really dark place and drawing really helped me through it. Thank you for not giving up on me._

"These are kids with hard lives," Carlos said. "And good old boring Tim is probably making a bigger difference than any of us, just by being there for them."

"I had no idea." Dorothy Ann kept looking at the notes. "I thought he taught art. What happened with Janet?"

"Tim's job is great but it's not glamorous." Carlos motioned around at the apartment. "Janet wanted more of a _Mad Men_ lifestyle."

"She does love drinking on the job." Dorothy Ann quipped, and Carlos laughed. "Let me guess – she ran off to a big agency."

"Bingo." Carlos said. "You're getting it now."

"No I don't," Dorothy Ann argued. "I don't get how this works. Are you really Carlos or not?"

"Okay, too many questions. Time to move on to someone else." Carlos snapped and they were in a nicer living room. "Go ahead, snoop." Dorothy Ann looked around. This living room had nice, plush furniture and a tall Christmas tree with white twinkling lights. It was elegant, yet lived in. Dorothy Ann had a feeling she knew whose it was before she saw the portrait on the wall.

"Arnold and Phoebe." She said aloud. "No kids. That's odd – they both love kids." She noticed the business card for a fertility clinic sticking out from behind coupons on a bulletin board. She felt her heart sink.

"Hmm, there's probably something there that maybe you'd know about if you talked to them more often." Carlos said.

Dorothy Ann shook her head, excited at remembering a detail from earlier in the night. "Last year! Phoebe was pregnant last year – that's why she wasn't drinking. There's a baby; they just haven't had the photo updated yet and you don't want to admit I'm right."

"Do you see any baby stuff around here?" Carlos asked.

Dorothy Ann sighed. "That's awful. I had no idea." She looked at the beautiful portrait of Arnold and Phoebe. They'd been sweethearts since childhood, and for them to grow up and not have everything they dreamed of was heartbreaking. Dorothy Ann was learning how interconnected her life could be, and it was exhausting. "Please tell me you and Wanda are okay – you're not losing your jobs, you have no health issues –"

"Is being so sexy it hurts a health issue?" Carlos ran his hand through his hair. "I can get a job anywhere at any time, but Wanda's in danger a lot of the time, and she's going to get hurt. Plus, we're not exactly _together_ or anything, but..."

Dorothy Ann interrupted him. "That's enough! I don't want to hear about it! It's too much. There's way too much going on – this is so emotional and dramatic and I can't handle it. What would I even say to Arnold? How do I ask what's happening? And then what do I _do_? I can't fix it, can I?" She felt tears well up in her eyes. "I can't do this. I can't be an emotional support to all of this while going through tenure."

"So you should just go through the tenure process alone?" Carlos asked. "You mean to tell me that you'd like being ignorant of all that's going on in your friends' lives?"

"I'm not ignorant!" Dorothy Ann recoiled. "I – I just don't want to know." She slowed down as she realized that she was, in fact, choosing ignorance. She was relieved when the Perlsteins' living room faded around her, and even more so when she realized she was in the library at Walker State. "This is my favorite studying spot." She whispered, marveling at the walnut furniture and going toward her corner, around a silk ficus tree and to a carrel that was perpendicular to a window. She spent hours in this very corner, studying with the sunshine over her shoulder, taking breaks to watch people on the plaza below.

"It's a Christmas carrel – get it?" Carlos asked.

"Shut up!" Dorothy Ann hissed as she approached her spot. Her carrel was occupied by one of her grad students – the one she had told to come in the next day. She was video chatting with someone on her phone. "What, do you want me to snoop in this conversation, too?" Dorothy Ann whispered to Carlos.

"Why stop now?" Carlos whispered back.

"It's fine, Mom," Emily said. "I'll call you when I get a break tomorrow." She hung up and took her earbud out. Dorothy Ann felt herself turn cold as Emily looked right at her. She was about to apologize when she heard a voice from behind her.

"Sorry to bother you, but would you like to buy a candy cane?" It was the music majors from before. Dorothy Ann watched Emily's reaction. Everything slowed down as Carlos turned to her.

"She really looks up to you, you know." Carlos said. "Do you really want her to turn them away? To tell them their lives are useless?"

"Well music does keep getting cut..." Dorothy Ann said, less certain of herself than she had been before.

"Did you see the letters from Tim's kids?" Carlos asked. "Some of them found meaning through art. It could have literally saved their lives."

"That was different." Dorothy Ann argued.

"Different how?" Carlos asked.

"I don't know!" Dorothy Ann felt tears fill her eyes again. "Okay, fine, I was wrong."

Carlos grabbed Dorothy Ann by the arms and looked her in the eye with an uncharacteristic seriousness. "Do you really want your life defined by ignorance? Do you want to live in a world devoid of art and wonder? Can you turn a blind eye to the needs of your friends? Do you want to doom yourself to a life of failure? What, indeed, is the purpose of all of this science without beauty?"

Dorothy Ann took a breath to answer him, but before she could say anything, he was gone. She was back in her bedroom, alone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Dorothy Ann picked up her phone and texted Carlos.

 _I'm coming to Christmas. Please make it stop._

She stared at the screen, but there was no indication of a forthcoming reply. She tried to stay awake, but realized that she was unsuccessful when the chime woke her.

"No, not again." Dorothy Ann said, but despite her protestations, a hooded figure appeared in her kitchen. The lamplight coming in through the window emanated around the figure, giving it a strange aura. "Who are you?"

The figure didn't reply. Dorothy Ann felt herself grow cold, and all the sadness she had felt earlier that evening from the memories and the realization that she had grown into a curmudgeon weighed upon her. "Please, don't. Just leave me alone."

The hooded figure didn't. Instead, Dorothy Ann found herself in a drab conference room with a "Happy Retirement!" banner haphazardly hanging on the wall. There were some mostly full fruit trays and three-fourths of a small sheet cake. She couldn't place the faces, although some were familiar. "Did the cake get eaten?" A young man, probably a grad student, asked.

"No," a middle-aged man replied. "We even bought a small one."

"Really?" The grad student grabbed a knife and cut into the cake.

"Is this Dr. Decker's retirement?" Dorothy Ann asked. "Those fools never recognized his genius anyway." The hooded figure made no reply.

"At least this frees up a tenure position," the older man said. "Are you interested in staying here after your postdoc?"

"Maybe," the grad student said after chewing a bite of cake. "I really like the area, and my wife has a good job here."

"That's good that you're both happy." The older man said. "It makes things a lot better when the whole family is happy."

Dorothy Ann looked at the hooded figure quizzically. She had never enjoyed small talk, and didn't understand why the spirit was showing her this of all things.

"She's been here and left already, hasn't she?" The postdoc asked. "She always hated pleasantries like this."

The older man nodded. "Her students didn't even show up. It's a shame. She's brilliant."

" _She_?" Dorothy Ann asked. "Oh my God, this is my retirement! And no one's coming?" She was at once shocked and angered. "Those assholes are already giving out my tenured position at my party? All those students I mentored didn't bother showing up?"

"Brilliant but harsh," the postdoc said. "I heard one of her grad students got pneumonia working in the building without heat one Christmas. That's cruel."

"It was regrettable, yes," The older man recalled. "I think it didn't even make it into a top tier journal. A lot of her career was like that – she was brilliant and driven. Maybe too driven. She needed hobbies."

The postdoc laughed. "Yeah she did. I talked to her about a potential research project and I could tell she didn't think about anything other than her specialty."

"She did have fair teaching evaluations from her freshmen." The older man corrected. "Let's not speak too ill of the recently retired."

A young woman stuck her head in the conference room. "Did I miss her?"

"You did," the older man, whom Dorothy Ann was beginning to like, replied. "Come have some cake."

"Don't mind if I do." The woman said. "Wow, it's the end of an era."

"I'm going to see if any of the other people in the department want any cake." The older man said. "And then we can go through her office. She had a really great desk chair that I'm claiming."

"WHAT THE HELL!" Dorothy Ann yelled.

The conference room faded to black. All Dorothy Ann could see was an entry in the personals column of one of her journals.

 _Dorothy Ann Mauer, astrophysicist and Distinguished Professor Emerita at Walker State University, passed away. She made many contributions …_

The text faded away. "Many contributions?" Dorothy Ann demanded. "Walker State? I do all this work to become a mediocre professor at a state school?" She began to cry. "No one comes to my retirement, I don't have a significant accomplishment, and no one cares? Why am I doing this?" She composed herself and thought aloud. "Many discoveries aren't recognized until much, much later. This is for the good of humanity, not for me."

Still, Dorothy Ann wasn't putting in all this work to be remembered in mediocrity. "Who will remember me?" She asked. The figure stretched out a bony hand, holding a photograph of her friends. "Of course. That's what this is all about, isn't it? Why are you doing this to me? Why is this so elaborate? STOP IT, CARLOS!" She grabbed at the hood to throw it off, but found herself grasping into cold air. "Why are you showing me this?"

Before her, she saw a gravestone. She knew exactly what this was. It had to be her own, and it had to be isolated, as she had been in life. The vision did not disappoint. Although she'd read and heard and seen the story many times, there was something about seeing her own name engraved in stone that made her insides seize up. The stark reality of her own mortality was staring her in the face. When she was gone, she'd take none of the things she worked for with her. She'd leave articles and accomplishments, but clearly she was being recognized as unlikeable, except for her choice in office chairs. The people who loved her were the ones that sent her texts and possibly made her hallucinate this whole fable. Although their lives were messy and they were facing problems without clear answers, she had to do something to be with them again.

"Please tell me this isn't the way it has to be." Dorothy Ann said through tears. "Please tell me this can change." She grabbed the figure's hand. "Tell me I can change this!"

She heard the echo of her cry on the walls of her bedroom. She grasped the headboard of her bed, squeezing it as hard as she could as her alarm clock went off.

It was Christmas morning.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Dorothy Ann knew that she had to do things differently right then. She picked up her phone to see if Carlos had texted her back, but she was interrupted as her phone began to ring.

"Um... Dr. Mauer, the door is locked?" It was Emily, her grad student.

"The door to what?" Dorothy Ann asked.

"The lab?"

"Why are you at the lab? It's Christmas!"

Emily laughed uncomfortably. "You told me to come in, and..."

"I did." Dorothy Ann admitted. "But I changed my mind. I – you shouldn't have to work in a building without heat!"

"Thanks?" Emily said uneasily.

"And for being willing to do so, and missing your trip home to see your family, I think you should definitely be the first author on this paper." Dorothy Ann said. "Let's meet after the holidays to discuss some of your ideas and which journals we should submit to."

"Really?" Emily asked, still skeptical.

"Really!" Dorothy Ann said brightly. "I've been far too hard on you for no good reason. Take the day to rest. Merry Christmas!"

She hung up the phone, already feeling better. At least now Emily wouldn't get pneumonia. Come to think of it, Emily was really good at teaching – she would make a great academic. Dorothy Ann thought she could learn a few things from Emily that would help her in the classroom. That way she could help shape undergraduates' lives in a more humanistic way than belittling them. Certainly, she had been belittled herself, but that didn't make it right.

She looked at her texts and Carlos had, as usual, replied.

 _12 pm at my house. Do you have the address?_

 _Of course!_ Dorothy Ann replied. She opened all the holiday cards she'd received from her friends, spent a few moments marveling over each one, and texted her appreciation and holiday wishes to each of them.

As she was basking in the joy of being somewhat social again, she realized that it would be completely rude to show up to Christmas dinner without anything to contribute. She had to make a grand gesture – her friends responded well to those kinds of things. Whatever it was, it had to be good. Then again, the stores would likely be picked over already, so she had to get the best of what was left. She threw a coat on over her pajamas and ran down to the nearest organic grocery store. She hadn't forgotten how some of her friends cared deeply about organic, non-GMO food. At last, in the refrigerated section, she found the choicest tofurkey. She bought it and ran all the way to Carlos's house. "Since Phoebe's vegetarian!" She said as Carlos opened the door.

"It's 10 am." He said. "And you're in your pajamas."

"Then take it and cook it – I'll come back when I'm dressed. Merry Christmas!" Dorothy Ann cried, shoving the tofurkey into Carlos's hands.

"What the hell got into her?" Wanda asked.

"I have no idea." Carlos said as he watched Dorothy Ann run down the street. "But I hope it sticks."

"Merry Christmas to us every one!" Dorothy Ann cried as she ran.


End file.
